World of Warcraft, Where do I start?

[RDSystems]

Broadband has just been hooked up in my area, so I'm getting it hooked up on Monday for the first time. I've heard alot about World of Warcraft and now that I will have a broadband connection I'm interested in playing the game. I've been searching the WOW website for a while tonight, as much as I'm able to because I'm still on dial-up right now and they have a ton of graphics. I found the forums but I'm not allowed to use them because I'm not a member.

I'm just wondering what I need to do to start playing, and what it's all about. I've seen it for sale at Best Buy but they have several different versions, or expansions. I'm not sure what its all about. Is it a single player game where you progress through the game and collect items, similar to how Zelda is played, or is it only a multiplayer game? What do I need to buy to get started? I don't want to go out and buy all the expansion packs if I don't need them. I wont be able to return the software later if I buy the wrong stuff. I'm interested in real 3D games, like Half-Life not the games with the "Top-Down View", like some RPGs.

The connection I will have is a 6Mbps connection. I think it should handle the game OK, but I'm not sure about system requirements. I've got a new laptop with Vista, AMD Turion, 1GB RAM, nVidia GeForce Go 6150, HD Wide Screen Monitor and Conexant High Definitian Audio (w/ Altec Lansing).

Do you think there will be any problems running the game? Before I go and waste the money.

What other good games are avaliable for online play that are similar to Half-Life? Since its the first time I've had a connection fast enough to even think about playing these games I'm completely out of the loop. In the past all I could play is Java-based games like you find at Yahoo.com... lol.

Good Day.

[dglienna]

Try this:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml

PM me if you need remote-control repairs, installations, or general help!

[carlhuk]

The only advice I can give you, is dont start. warcraft has the nickname warcrack for a reason!

[KrisSimonis]

World of Warlocks * ahem * I mean Warcraft is an MMORPG game. As in you don't play it singleplayer, you log on online along with tens of thousands of other players and interact with the virtual enviroment of the game world,
both cooperatively (PVE aka Player versus Enviroment) and competitively(PVP aka Player versus Player).
The world is a fantasy setting, the same one from the warcraft RTS games and continues the story of these games 5 years after the events of the frozen throne expansion.
Blizzard have released 1 expansion up to now, The Burning Crusade, with a new world to explore, increased level cap, new instances, raids, pvp battleground and pvp objectives, a new crafting skill and a few other gizmo's. They are planning a new one called 'Wrath of The Lich King' which will increase the level cap again, and add a load more content.

Read up on the WoWWiki for more details of what the game contains.
If you're going to play it, it's Pay to play, so you will be spending about 12 euro's every month to play. Also be prepared to invest a lot of time into the game. The game is highly addictive, and it has tons of things to do that all take time to get further and further into the game.
At end level gaming, it's roughly divided into 2 types of play, PvE and PVP.

PVE you go on raids into raiding instances, which are basicly a subset of the game reserved for those players that enter it together and where you have a specific objective to kill. These vary from 5 man instances to the old world 40 man raiding parties to the new formats of 10 man and 25 man raiding parties. So yes, you will be there with 24 other people working together according to a plan that you've formulated before.

PVP you have 'battlegrounds' which are like instances ranging from 10, 15 and 40 man. These are games against players of the opposing faction and have a set goal, depending on the battleground. (IE warsong gulch the first one is a 10 man battleground where 10 hordies square off against 10 alliance members in a game of capture the flag. The others have different objectives )
Beyond that, you have Arena, which you fight opposing arena teams of both factions, varying in game type, 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 arena matches which are ranked and at the end of the season the winners get special prizes.

[Sarevok]

join the fun see you in Ironforge

[KrisSimonis]

Since this is a topic about WoW.. I can't resist posting this:

Kael'Thas DOWN! WHOOOHOO!
Rage WinterChill DOWN! More WHOOHOO!
BLACK TEMPLE HERE I COME! ILLIDAN, BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!!

( sorry, couldn't resist.. after weeks of trying, we finally managed to kill that horrible little Gay Elf Kael'Thas )

[saffionline]

What is War Craft ?

[KrisSimonis]

Warcraft ( 1 word ) is the name of an RTS game created by Blizzard well over a decade ago. It was a great success, and numerous expansions and sequel's were made.
The last of these were Warcraf III: Reign of Chaos and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. In these, the game had evolved from a basic RTS to a cinematic RTS/RPG where the internal rendering engine could switch to a 'cinematic' view and the ingame models just continued while game control was disabled and you watched the before and aftermath of a level ( or sometimes during the level when reaching a certain objective )

After this, it was quiet for a while, while blizzard worked on the next incarnation in this setting, which was World of Warcraft, an MMORPG that is based on the same world and the same history. The previous wars between The Horde, The Alliance, The Legion and numerous other events that had happened in the previous RTS games were all incorportated into it.

WoW has since had an expansion released last year called 'The Burning Crusade' in which the world of outland was added to the game content, and numerous other things. One of which is even a special place where the last level of Warcraft III (The Battle of mount Hyjal, which is the culmination of the story in WC3 and you finally defeat the great bad guys ) can be replayed, only instead of as RTS, where you build and control units to defeat the enemy, you are one of the soldiers fighting in the battle )

Currently the game is in version 2.3.4 and soon will be upgrading to 2.4 where new content will be released. and in a few months, a new expansion called 'Wrath of the Lich King' will be released.